but why do they value the olympics higher? It's a tournament within a tournament... buried beneath hundreds of other sports.
the world cup puts basketball into the spotlight. so why not value it more?
also... if team USA showed up with their elite, the world cup would get more attention and significance overall.
Probably because the World Cup only became known as the World Cup for this year, because they were trying to increase interest in it. Prior to that it was the FIBA Basketball Championships and and to be honest I would doubt many in the US follow it or even know about it. The NBA is seen as the premier basketball championship in terms of overall quality. The Olympic basketball tournament trades off the equity in the Olympics brand.
I suppose to try to compare it to something that a European would understand better, it would be like the Olympics being the Champions League and the FIBA Championships being the Europa League...or the World Cup vs the Nations League. One just has a lot more cachet and prestige than the other.